Henna among most popular attractions at ACC

More than 40 members of the greek system once showed up to Hallie Baumann’s henna workshop to get henna designs of KOK.

“Kilroy’s does this thing where if you get KOK tattooed on you, you get free cover charge,” Baumann said. “So they all came and wrote KOK on them with henna. I never heard back if it worked or not, but that was amusing.”

Though Baumann said she didn’t want to condone the activity by helping out, one man was doing such a horrible job doing the design that she stepped in to help.

“Some came back and attended other sessions,” Baumann said.

“That was nice so it got some people actually interested.”

Baumann has taught the workshop for the past three years and does henna professionally.

Monday’s sleet and rain caused the six to ten RSVP’ed guests to not show up, but Baumann went on with only one student in attendance.

The event was hosted at the Asian Cultural Center.

“The ACC does this just to get students in here and members of the community, because anyone can come,” Baumann said. “It gets people talking, and it’s always free.”

Henna doesn’t just bring people at IU together, but also people in India, Baumann said.
“It’s not directly related to a religious practice,” Bauman said.

“So it really is a communal thing. It’s used for weddings when the bridesmaids and family do henna on the bride. It’s just to bring people together.”

And Baumann welcomes anyone at any skill level to come.

She said the more you do Henna, the better you get at working with the medium. By welcoming all skill levels, Baumann has seen many students develop their skills.

“There was a group of ten that used to come every week together,” Baumann said.
“Only one was actually artsy, but it was great seeing them grow and appreciate the art.”

Baumann said she loves puns and used to call the group her henna-prentices, but she said they graduated.

“Now I even work with some of those students at outside events,” Baumann said.

From this group, Baumann had one student who would only design old ladies with cats.

“That’s all she would design,” Baumann said. “But she got really good.”

On days when people at her workshop are feeling ambitious, Baumann said she has seen full arm designs and once helped design a full back tattoo of the Pokemon Articuno.

Hailey Gibson first came to the workshop in October with her floor from Collins Living-Learning Center.

After seeing the how fun henna could be and the benefits of impermanent tattoos, Gibson said she decided to keep coming back.

“You see so many students with dumbass tattoos that they won’t want in 30 years,” Gibson said. “With henna you can get something different every week.”

Since attending the workshops, Gibson has started to do henna on her own, but still attends to hang out with Baumann and take advantage of the free henna.

“This is really nice stuff, and Hallie knows how to make cool designs,” Gibson said.

“If you’re trying to start on your own, the designs on Google are either really horrible or really, really complicated.”

Sometimes Gibson gets to take home the extra henna, because if it’s not used in a couple of days, it goes bad.

“Henna has a very short shelf-life,” Baumann said. “Which is why you know the stuff in stores has added preservatives, which can be dangerous.”

The henna used at the workshop is all-natural to ensure safety. Using henna with preservatives can cause rashes or cause someone to develop an allergy to henna.

Gibson said she plans to keep doing henna because she said it’s a great social experience, and it’s very relaxing.

“It’s easy to pick up and share with people,” Baumann said. “Especially when you live with a bunch of hippies in Collins.”

The ACC generally has had trouble getting non-Asian Americans to attend their events, but this hasn’t been so with the henna workshop, Baumann said.

“Because it’s often seen at the beach or at festivals it’s not exclusively Indian,” Baumann said. “Henna reaches out so we have lots of different people come.”